


bluestockings

by lightsaroundyourvanity



Category: RWBY
Genre: 18th Century, F/F, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaroundyourvanity/pseuds/lightsaroundyourvanity
Summary: It's the end of the eighteenth century, and Blake is embarking on her grand tour, a rite of passage. She expects to find art, culture, music, and new worlds -- she never expects to find love.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Coco Adel/Velvet Scarlatina
Comments: 23
Kudos: 181
Collections: Bumbleby Big Bang 2020





	bluestockings

**Author's Note:**

> you guys we did it!!!!! thank you so much to everyone who has written such beautiful pieces for the big bang, it's been such an honour and a thrill to host this event and see so many talented writers gush and mutually admire and write and draw and create for all these months. i'm really so genuinely floored.
> 
> speaking of floored......... my artist AJ drew something INCREDIBLE, check it out on [twitter](https://twitter.com/part_clown/status/1328536095508877315?s=20) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/cptdanvxrs/634999322732314624). he was so enthusiastic and patient with me through this whole process, and i'm honestly so much prouder of how his piece turned out than he even knows.
> 
> anyway. here it is. my big bang. i hope you all like it <3

_London. 1785._

The morning Blake Belladonna leaves for Paris, London is dreary, the way it so often is in the spring. The wheels of her carriage squelch through mud and bad weather and overhead, Blake can hear the rattle of her luggage, percussive accompaniment to the pinging of the rain. They’re straining against the ropes that bind them, and Blake indulges in a little melodrama and decides that she knows how she feels; as she stares through the window, as she rests her chin in her hand and thinks.

Blake is en route to the Schnee estate, a sprawling manse on the outskirts of London, the lushly appointed home of Jacques Schnee – she has never been there herself, but people talk in drawing rooms, and they especially talk about the homes of newly monied industrialists, if only to snidely debate whether three fountains in the foyer is gaudy or inspired. There, Blake will bid goodbye to her rickety, rented stagecoach and be reintroduced to Miss Weiss and Miss Winter Schnee, who she knows only in passing and by reputation, and who she will be glued to the sides of for the next nine months.

If this sounds like a misery to any reader who prefers the hearth, warm books and friends you have called by a nickname since childhood (and Blake Belladonna is without question), take heed: This morning, she is leaving for Paris.

The Belladonnas were not a rich family, and at nineteen, Blake had long since assumed that a tour of the continent was something outside of her reach. When her father had come to her with a generous offer from a distant colleague Blake had been stunned – and suspicious. Jacques Schnee want not a generous man. In his own circles, he was heralded as a visionary. All Blake saw in his world was cruel impartiality though, workers who were starved and run down to the bone, the Thames growing cloudier, the landscape of London growing crowded and distressed. And ambition. Lots and lots of ambition.

This is where Blake had put the pieces together -- Jacques Schnee was new money, and the people he thought were worth keeping up with on the Continent were not. The Belladonnas may not have had the money to allow their daughters to tour in style, but their line could be traced back centuries. If the Belladonna name meant less in London these days, it still meant something in the highlands. It still meant something in Edinburgh, where they kept their estate. And it still meant something across the channel. Thus, an unsteady partnership had been formed.

Blake Belladonna is a creature of the hearth, but she also someone who jumps in headfirst, follows her passion, follows her heart. She had agreed to this generous offer, as it were, and she had launched into dreamy thoughts about the Sorbonne library, about masquerade balls, about Rome, and orchards that smelled like lemons. And all the while she’d pushed aside that her travelling companion would be Weiss Schnee.

(Blake knows Weiss only in passing, only by reputation, but the impression that this has left is _spoiled._ The glimpse of Miss Schnee that Blake has caught from a distance is someone who is icy and demanding, a haughty tilt to her chin as she sees her every need met.)

The carriage is breaking through the trees now, the Schnee estate pouring into view. On a sunny day, Blake is sure that the estate is lovely, with its rolling hills and towering walls of white stone. There’s a subdued beauty to it in the fog still, the grass silvered by dew and sleet, the rooftops drifting into hazy blankets of clouds and turning dreamlike. Blake had thought she’d find something cold, modern and ostentatious. Instead she surprises herself by being charmed.

She’s surprised once again when they roll into the driveway, and Blake finds not a coterie of footman, but a lone girl, wrapped in a red shawl and bouncing on her toes. She trots up to Blake’s carriage, so cheerfully that Blake wonders if she’s trying to remedy the lack of sunshine.

“Help you with your bags, Miss?” she asks, leaning towards the window. There’s a smudge of dirt on one round cheek.

“Are you sure?” Blake asks. She’s still looking around for the hostlers, wondering if she’ll have to tip her carriage driver extra to lift her packs down. “They’re quite heavy.”

Unexpectedly, the other girl snorts. “Ain’t nothing. I’m stronger than I look.”

Blake opens her mouth, shuts it on a protest. Quicker than lightning, without waiting for an answer, the girl in red scrambles up the back of the carriage and starts unlashing Blake’s luggage. She’s just starting on the second trunk when the front door of the manor slams open and another girl marches out.

“ _Ruby._ We’re supposed to be waiting inside.”

Ruby makes a face, flicks a wet strand of hair out of her startling silver eyes. “Where’s the fun in that?” she grumbles, half to herself, and the corner of Blake’s mouth tugs upwards in a smile. She continues to wrestle Blake’s trunk down from the carriage, and she’s so stubborn, so sure of herself, that Blake is as shocked as she is sure Ruby is when the younger girl slips and falls, a flail and a shriek. Blake’s trunk lands after her with a dreadful crunching noise on the ground.

The girl who had scolded her skids forward. Her hair is loose, long, and blonde and it streams behind her when she rushes to Ruby’s side. And Blake swears that she smells lemons.

”Are you _alright?”_ the blonde asks, new frantic.

Ruby groans and struggles to her elbows. “I’m fine, Yang. I know how to fall down.”

For a moment, Yang’s expression is unreadable. Then she bursts into laughter and shoves Ruby’s shoulder. “Of course you do.”

Ruby joins Yang laughing, and Blake watches them both, and the moody brown study she had worked herself up to is at odds with these giggling strangers, which leaves Blake very confused. She doesn’t know if she should ask how they are doing, who they are, or maybe just walk away. Her instincts are leaning towards the latter. She’s just beginning to turn on her heel when the front door bangs open a second time and a stout, small man with a mustache bustles out.

“ _Both_ of you should go on inside,” he says briskly. “Miss Schnee asked you to set the sitting room for tea, not roll around in the mud.”

“I just wanted to see the carriage arrive,” Ruby protests.

“You’re about to spend the next nine _months_ in a carriage,” Yang says. “It’s not terribly exciting.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” says Ruby. “There’s no poetry in your soul.”

 _“Girls._ ”

Ruby and Yang struggle to their feet, as guilty as children. “Sorry, Klein,” they murmur in unison as they slink past him and head inside.

Blake is left feeling dizzy. Her trunks are on the ground, so she pays the stagecoach and watches it rumble away. She has the distinct feeling of walking through a dream, the vignette of Yang and Ruby too chaotic for reality. She still smells a hint of lemons.

“Do you keep a theatre troupe on retainer, then?” Blake asks Klein, a wry arch to her brow.

Klein snorts. “You’ll wish we did. That’s Miss Schnee’s comb-brush, and the girl she brought on for you.”

When arrangements had been made for Blake to join Weiss Schnee on her tour, they’d also promised to bring on a lady’s maid for her, someone to help her dress and remember how to comb her hair. Blake had pictured someone tightly curled and grasping with skin like thin milk. Though it feels premature to admit so out loud, these two girls were a bracing and welcome surprise – but she wonders how on earth they squirmed their way up to the muster of the Schnees.

“Someone else will fetch your bags,” Klein says when Blake doesn’t respond. “Tea should be served now. Please, come in.”

Blake follows Klein inside, but her thoughts are still with the mud and the laughter.

\--

The transformation that ten minutes can make is astonishing. Blake notices this as she sips on her tea. In one hand, she holds a delicate saucer edged in gold, and she rests her teacup down on it. The Schnee sitting room is grand, austere, and while a fire roars in the enormous fireplace set against one wall of the room, Blake thinks the mud felt warmer. Perhaps it has something to do with the company. Weiss Schnee sits across from Blake, her posture rigid, her eyes like cold glass. A scar traces down one side of her face, over the eye, grazing her cheekbone, and Blake wonders how she managed to acquire it. She’s just deciding that it was due to a snapped harp string during a grand concert when the maid enters with a fresh pot of tea and a tiered stand with cakes and scones.

“Miss,” says the maid with a demure bob of her head. Blake recognizes the voice instantly. She’s only heard it once before, but it had been recent, and it had been striking. Her mass of hair is pinned back and underneath a cap, but Blake had seen it swinging free in the rain. Yang is serving her tea.

She looks much more restrained, but there is a hint of that laughter still on her face, in the twitch of her mouth, in the light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are trained on the floor, but Blake still notices that they are bright violet, that they can’t quite contain a glimmer of fun.

Blake isn’t sure how long she watches Yang for, but it must be longer than she thinks, because Yang’s lower lip quivers like she’s holding in a laugh. She tilts her chin up, and her eyes meet Blake’s. Before she turns away, Yang _winks._

It’s so quick that it would be easy for Blake to tell herself that she’s imagined it. But Blake feels distinctly unsettled, and there’s nothing imagined about that. She asks herself: Just who _is_ this woman?

“We can go over the itinerary, if you like,” Weiss says.

Blake jolts when she turns her attention to Miss Schnee. She looks quickly towards Yang again, but the blonde is already retreating. Despite the matronly cut of her gown, the drab servant’s grey, her curves are obviously generous; her hips sway when she walks.

“The itinerary?” Blake asks mildly, distracted.

“If you like.”

Blake gives her full attention to Weiss. For the first time, she notices a crack in Weiss’s exterior. She can’t quite explain it. It’s a catch of vulnerability in her voice; it’s the earnest way she leans forward in her chair despite her well-schooled face. For the first time, Blake wonders if there’s more to Weiss than her reputation.

Weiss ruins it a moment later when she sniffs indignantly. “Unless I’m boring you,” she says sharply. Every line Blake had traced seconds earlier vanishes.

Blake sinks into her chair. “No,” she says guiltily. “That sounds good.”

Weiss, all business, nods crisply and sets down her tea. “Excellent. Well, as I mentioned earlier, we’ll depart shortly, as soon as my sister Winter returns from her errands. You were informed that she’d be our acting chaperone, yes?”

“Um. Yes.” Blake gulps. Weiss has a knack for making her feel like she’s being given a test.

“Very good.” Weiss takes a deliberate, measured sip of her tea. She adds lemon first, stirs it with a very small spoon – it’s a process of many steps. “As well as Winter, we shall be travelling with a driver and two maids. Miss Xiao Long—” Yang is back in the room and at Weiss’s elbow in a flash, bobbing her head, “—and her younger sister, Miss Rose. I believe you met her earlier.”

The scrappy girl in the muddy shawl. Blake smiles. “Yes, I did.”

Weiss nods. “I expect we’ll reach Dover in the early evening. My father had arranged rooms for us at an inn there. We’ll sail to Calais in the morning, and to Paris directly from there. I imagine we shall arrive quite late. Will Miss Adel be ready to receive us?”

“I’ll send post ahead from Calais,” Blake says easily. She’s grateful to have an answer to a question. It makes her feel on solid ground. Blake hopes that this isn’t a portent for how the year will go, strict timelines and Weiss’s brusque instructions. She wants a chance to stretch her legs, to see the sights on her own terms. To dream freely.

Blake knows the answer because it is her introduction that will find them lodged in Paris. Coco Adel ran a salon in Paris with a smart reputation – but more importantly, her mother and Blake’s mother had been fast friends when they were girls. Coco’s mother had moved to Paris to marry, while Kali Belladonna had remained in Scotland, but they had kept up over the years through letters, until Mrs. Adel’s death two years before. Though in her twenties, Coco had never married – only inherited a generous sum from her mother. Off that, she kept a townhouse in Paris; on Rue du Columbier and in elegant, independent style. Blake was looking forward to finally meeting her.

“Very good,” Weiss says again. “We’ll spent the spring and some of the summer in Paris and then move on to Venice, where we—”

“ _Weiss._ You’re not ready to leave?”

Weiss’s back straightens even more, which Blake didn’t think was possible. “Of course we are. I was just receiving Miss Belladonna. It’s been dreadful weather this morning, and we’ve been waiting for you.”

Blake looks towards the doorway, and finds it framing a woman who is clearly Weiss’s sister, Miss Winter Schnee, their so-called chaperone. She looks the part: Her hair is pulled up so tightly that it stretches the skin on her face; her mouth is a stern line. Blake can’t help but see the parallel: Another set of sisters, calling for each other and then giggling in the rain. She doesn’t think Winter nor Weiss have ever giggled in their lives.

But again, she notices that same shred of vulnerability from Weiss when Winter enters the room: It’s in the way Weiss jumps to her feet, the way her hopeful glance follows Winter, silently wishing for approval.

If Winter notices this as well, she ignores it. Instead she turns to Blake and nods curtly. “Welcome, Miss Belladonna. I trust you’ve been well treated.”

“Your sister is a gracious host,” Blake murmurs, sneaking a glance towards Weiss. That same childlike hope still dogs her expression. For all her airs, Blake gets the distinct impression that Weiss covets her older sister’s approval.

“If you say so,” Winter says, as crisp and ever. She strips off the gloves she’d been wearing outdoors. The light catches against the tiny buttons along their wrists, glinting gold. Without a proper goodbye, she turns again, walks out of the room. “We’ll leave on the hour,” she calls behind her. “Finish up your tea, sister. We haven’t much time.”

Weiss dives back into her seat and finishes her tea in one long swallow. Blake watches her, amused. There are more facets to the Schnee diamond than a first glance would presume.

\--

After Winter’s arrival, things move at a remarkable clip, and Blake has time to blink twice before she’s in the Schnee coach, an elegant blue and white trap, and they are rolling through the open countryside towards the white cliffs of Dover. Blake sits in the roomy interior of the coach on a cushion edged with gold rope. She is directly across from Weiss. They share the space with Winter and Miss Rose. To Blake’s surprise, Miss Xiao Long opts to sit _en plein air_ , out front with the driver.

“The driver is our uncle,” Ruby supplies, cheerfully and without prompting. “She probably wants a chance to catch up.”

Winter scowls. “If I catch wind that Miss Xiao Long has taken even a _nip_ of what I am _certain_ Mister Branwen is hiding under his cloak—”

“Yang’s no brandy-face!” Ruby snaps, outraged. She realizes who she is speaking to too late and ducks her head. “Begging your pardon, Miss Schnee.”

Winter spins her ire towards Weiss. “Mind your girl,” she admonishes.

Weiss looks mortified. “Sorry, Winter.” She glares ay Ruby, and poison would taste sweeter.

Blake awkwardly twists her fingers in her lap and thinks about pulling out a book. She was in the middle of a new English translation of _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ by Goethe and enjoying it immensely – and she would much prefer to read about Werther’s doomed love for Charlotte than marinate in a tense quarrel between siblings. She leans over and fishes for the carpetbag beneath her feet, ignores the sharp stays of her gown when one jams her in the ribs.

Ruby’s eyes alight on the book as soon as Blake takes it out. She looks from the book to Blake several times, longingly, as though she might be squirming in her seat if she weren’t on her best behaviour.

After a minute or two of this, Blake takes the bait. “Have you read it?” she asks Ruby.

Ruby nods, eager and free by Blake’s inquiry. “Oh, yes. I adore _Sturm un Drang_. All that fire and passion.”

“You’re a romantic, then,” Blake replies, smiling.

“ _Only_ in literature,” Ruby says emphatically. “Who has the time in everyday life?”

Blake laughs. “I know what you mean?”

Ruby’s eyes stretch wide in surprise. “But you’re a _lady,_ ” she splutters. “I mean – all I mean is – isn’t romance _all_ you have time for? Oh, that came out wrong.”

“Stop _babbling_ ,” Weiss snaps. She looks carefully at Winter for approval, but Winter is ignoring her, staring out the window.

“Sorry!” Ruby squeaks.

“It’s alright,” says Blake. “I don’t mind.”

Despite this, a quiet settles over the carriage. Winter continues to stare out the window; Ruby stares at her feet. Blake lets her attention drift back to her book.

Weiss surprises them all by being the first to break the silence. “Socializing and romance don’t necessarily go hand in hand,” she says to Ruby in a softer tone. “I can’t speak for Miss Belladonna, but my sister and I will marry according to what’s best for our family. Our father will likely decide.”

“That sounds miserable,” Ruby blurts. She claps her hand over her mouth upon hearing her own tone.

Weiss defies precedent and doesn’t scold Ruby. Instead, she looks sympathetic, nearly wistful. “I’ve never really thought about it one way or another,” she says, and Blake smells it for a lie.

Winter’s eyes are still trained studiously out the window, fascinated by the trees as they blur by. She doesn’t say a word, but Blake thinks she sees her expression soften too.

“I’ve never thought about it much one way or another,” Blake offers. “Love, I mean. I’m sure my parents wouldn’t oppose to a love match, but I’ve never… I don’t…” Blake trails off and shrugs with a self-effacing smile. “Perhaps it’s just not in the cards for me.”

“Don’t say that,” says Ruby. “You’re going to _Paris._ ”

“Yes, well. As someone very wise once said to me, who has the time in everyday life?” Blake smirks at Ruby, who grins when she hears her own words thrown back at her.

“If we ever make it to Dover, that is.” Winter cuts in with a sigh. She bangs on the wall of the carriage and looks annoyed. “Heya! We’re to make it by sundown, you know this, yes?”

A moment later a gaunt, scruffy face appears in the window. It’s Mister Branwen, the driver. He looks aggravated and smells of gin. “The rain makes the road treacherous,” he says. “Sorry. Bad luck. We’ll get there when we get there.”

“We’ll _get there_ when you promised we would,” Winter says coldly.

Mister Branwen shrugs. “Can’t ask me to control the skies, Miss Schnee.” Before Winter can reply, he disappears, returns to watching the road.

Winter makes an irritated noise. “Awful man,” she grumbles, despite Ruby, seated across from her.

“He’s not so bad,” Weiss pipes in. Ruby glances at her gratefully, but Weiss, having seemingly used up all of her sympathy for the day, doesn’t acknowledge it.

A quiet settles over the carriage. Blake tries to return to her book, but her mind is jangling now. She still thinks, absurdly, of love. Blake has had infatuations. She’s even been kissed before – by Sun Wukong, the baker’s son, and her father would be apoplectic if he ever came to learn _that._ But love… it seems to huge, too out of right. Weiss is right: their fathers choose their husbands for them. For some, this would be anathema. For Blake, it is a luxury: She doesn’t have to think about love, because of the accident of her birth. The choice was made for her long ago.

And because so Blake rarely thinks about the kind of person she might fall in love with, she doesn’t recognize the signs as they creep towards her – not even the way that, unbidden, her thoughts keep catching on a pair of violet eyes.

\--

They arrive after dark despite Mister Branwen’s promises, and Winter’s expression grows stormier with every minute that ticks past sunset. It’s offset only slightly by the warm sight of the coaching inn. The Golden Vale is a handsome, two storied building with cheerful fires burning within, and Blake feels relief at the sight. Despite the plush trappings of the Schnee’s coach, the damp of the day has seeped into her bones, and she’s grateful to see that cozy lodgings are only minutes away.

Blake exits the coach and sees Mister Branwen and Miss Xiao Long are already hard at work unloading trunks and coordinating with the young stable hand who stumbles forward to receive them. He’s a young, freckle faced boy who can’t be more than fourteen, and Blake hopes that he is stronger than he looks, lest he end up in the mud like Ruby had hours earlier.

Weiss bustles inside without another word, shivering, but Winter lingers behind to shoot Mister Branwen a look that could melt glass.

“Your punctuality leaves something to be desired, Mister Branwen.”

Mister Branwen scowls. He fumbles in his breast pocket – for a flask, Blake suspects – but a stern look from Yang stills his hand.

“Bad luck, Miss Schnee,” Mister Branwen grumbles. “Can’t be helped.”

Winter’s eyes narrow, as though she thinks Mister Branwen might be holding after her. Blake hangs back awkwardly. After a tense beat, Winter decides to let it go. She marches inside, and Mister Branwen swears and heads the opposite direction, towards the stables.

This leaves only Blake, Yang, and the gentle patter of the rain.

“We should get you inside,” says Yang. “Wouldn’t sit right with me if you caught a chill your first night out.”

Blake wonders if Miss Xiao Long is genuinely concerned for her, or if she’s trying to break the tension from Winter and Mister Branwen’s argument. Either way, she’s grateful for it. She nods, and takes a delicate step forward, feels the soft leather of her boots squelch in the mud. To her absolutely surprise, Yang offers her arm to Blake, like a gentleman. Blake moves on instinct, rests her palm in the crook of Yang’s elbow, and lets Miss Xiao Long steer her inside.

The blast of warm air that hits Blake when she steps inside brings a sedative effect along with it, and Blake’s jaw cracks on a stifled yawn. It’s not just after dark – it’s _long_ after dark, and Blake is starting to realize how tired she was. It’s funny, how travel can take it out of you: You’re not _doing_ anything taxing, and yet… and yet. Blake sleepily scans the room, looking for Weiss, but can’t spot her. She does see Miss Rose, who skips over to them upon sight.

“Miss Schnee went to bed,” she says, mostly to Yang. “I couldn’t sleep right now, could you?”

Blake feels her eyes growing heavier by the minute. She can’t say her thoughts are in tandem with Miss Rose.

Yang grins at her sister, and then glances at Blake sidelong. “Tell you what,” she says to Miss Rose, “Let me settle in Miss Belladonna, and then I’ll deal you in for a round of cards. If that’s alright with you, Miss?”

It takes Blake a full thirty seconds to connect that the last words have been conveyed to _her._ She nods quickly. “Of course.”

Ruby cheers, and Blake wonders where she gets her energy from, and then Yang is leading her to her room, and grateful exhaustion starts to seep further in.

Blake is put in a room near the back off the inn. It’s handsomely appointed with dark, polished furniture, a tall bed, a coverlet of purple silk patterned with swirling gold suns and moons. Blake is pleasantly surprised; then again, she should have guessed that it would be nothing but the best for the Schnees.

Miss Xiao Long puts on the light and clears her throat. “Your things are still being brought up, but you looked knackered, so I thought you might be ready for bed.”

Blake blushes, feels somehow caught. “Oh I’m not –” the words catch on a yawn, and she smiles ruefully. “Yes, perhaps I am.”

“May I help you undress?”

If Blake was tired before, Yang’s words are as bracing as an icy stream. Blake can’t explain why. She’s has dozens of maids help her undress hundreds, thousands of times. But there’s something about Miss Xiao Long. In her mouth, the words become intimate.

It would be so much stranger to say no, though. Blake nods, and unpins her breast knot, a silver chased knot with the Belladonna crest woven into the design. The simple muslin shawl she’d worn for travelling falls away from her shoulders and slithers to the ground. Immediately, Yang steps forward and picks it up.

Blake’s dress is uncomplicated, a gray and lavender striped silk that didn’t stain easily, but it is still many layered, and it takes some time to strip Blake down to her stays. Yang is quiet throughout, but her eyes are everywhere. Her hands are gentle, but Blake sees callouses on the pads of her fingers, the arch of her thumb. However Yang Xiao Long spends her days, Blake suspects that acting as a comb brush is far from the span of it.

Still, Miss Xiao Long is deft as she unpins the front of Blake’s gown and unlaces her underbodice. The process feels a little ostentatious to Blake – she usually only had her maids help her with her stays – but Yang doesn’t ask any questions, and Blake doesn’t offer them. She supposes any girl trained for the Schnee household had it drilled in her heart to follow all the steps with rigor.

When Blake is left in only her stays and her chemise, Yang smiles and twirls her finger. “Turn around,” she says.

“I beg your pardon?”

“These are back lacing.”

Of course, Blake knows this. She dressed herself this morning, after all. She dresses herself every morning, and she only owns back lacing stays. This is not a shock, and it is not a revelation. So why does she feels her heart suddenly start to race?

Blake turns around. Right away, Yang’s hands are everywhere, loosening the tight laces, nearly skin touching skin when she touches Blake through only her chemise. Blake feels her ribcage expand gratefully as the corseting eases, and with it, a rush in the pit of her stomach, like she’s falling, like she’s fallen, like she’s gone.

Blake has had infatuations. She’s even been kissed before. But Sun Wukong’s lips against hers never felt as thrilling as the simple touch of Yang’s fingertips.

The thought crashes into Blake’s mind and stuns her. The afternoon clarifies for her, the way Yang’s eyes had lingered in her thoughts, pop and fizzle in her blood when Miss Xiao Long tilted her head and smirked. Blake _wants_ Yang. She knows it’s a scandal, and a predictable one – a lady and her comb brush – but the only true shock Blake feels is that it took her an entire day to put words to something so perfectly obvious.

Yang carefully finishes unlacing, and then her arms circle Blake’s waist to remove the stays. In the glow of her revelation, this is almost unbearable for Blake: Yang so close to being pressed against her, tall enough to rest her chin on the top of Blake’s head. Blake grows very, very still until Yang pulls back again, and then she turns around.

The low glow of the oil lamp casts shadows over Blake, shifts and hints at the naked curves underneath her thin chemise. She almost crosses her arms over her chest self-consciously. Yang is watching her, open interest in her downcast eyes. Blake’s instinct is to feel shameful, to curl away from Yang’s stare, but something more insistent tells her to stop – something close to her heart. She waits until Yang lifts her gaze, half promise, half challenge. Their eyes meet, and Blake nearly shivers. Would Miss Xiao Long tuck her into bed now, kiss her brow, keep her warm? Blake would let her. It’s audacious, but she would say yes. She feels as though she were under a spell.

“Good night, Miss Belladonna,” Yang says softly. “If you need anything else…”

“I—” Blake’s answer hangs in the air, unspoken. The silence hangs in the air, expanding. Blake feels herself losing her nerve.

Yang breaks first. She looks away with an odd, private smile; Blake feels her stomach drop again. She wants to reach out for Yang, to feel her hand circle around her sturdy wrist and pull their bodies flush together, but years of trained propriety stops her. And Yang looks away.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Miss Belladonna.”

She turns the lamp down to an ember on her way out the door. Blake feels it lodged in her throat for a very long time, the embers, and beyond that, the flame.

\--

Blake wakes the next morning and feels as though she half-dreamed the encounter with Yang. In fact, Miss Xiao Long freshens Blake’s toilette with such cheerful, impersonal competency that by the time Blake is dressed and down for breakfast she wonders if perhaps she _did_ dream it. Too many sentimental novels, too much excitement on the air.

(Of course she knows in her bones that what happened _happened._ But Blake tells herself the lie so that she can go about her day.)

Both Schnee sisters are already at the table, which Blake had expected. Miss Rose is nowhere in sight, and neither is her maddening sister. Since they were at a coaching inn, house staff were serving them this morning.

“Eat quickly, Miss Belladonna,” Winter advises her. “Our ships departs on the hour.”

Blake smears apricot jam on a roll and wolfs it down.

Though the winds were with them sailing from Dover, the voyage across the channel was some seven hours long, and Winter had arranged passage at the crack of dawn to compensate for it. Blake spots Ruby smothering a yawn and sees Weiss fight back an equally sleepy but much more restrained nod of her head, but she feels strung tight and alive. The last smears of the sunrise are burning off on the horizon, a spectacular riot of pinks and periwinkles that reflected on the sea below. When she boards the ferry, she smells salt air, fresh and harsh and strong, feels the wind riffling through her hair, tastes the lavender scented grass on the faraway shores of France.

They have a cabin on board, but for the departure, Blake leans against the rails and listens to the sailors shout amongst themselves as the white cliffs of Dover shrink away. Winter goes below deck, along with the help, but Weiss stays. Blake looks over at her: Weiss looks wide eyed and excited, her profile younger and more pure.

“Haven’t you made this voyage before?” Blake asks her.

“Yes,” says Weiss. She still stares towards the sea, at England fading into the early morning fog. “But never alone.”

Blake doesn’t point out that Weiss isn’t really alone. She knows that what Weiss really means is never without her father.

To that end, Blake has never travelled without her family either, although she knows it carries a different weight for her than it does with Weiss. Yes, Blake had expectations on her. But she’d grown up surrounding by warmth, laughter, and her father lifting her onto her shoulders when she was small. Weiss had grown up with so much, but these luxuries had escaped her. Jacques Schnee was not a warm man.

There’s a rustle beside her, and Blake looks to see Yang as she joins Blake and Weiss at the rail.

“The beginning of an adventure, eh?” Yang asks them both.

Weiss smiles politely. “Something like that.”

Blake lets it all sink beneath her skin. The sun is starting to rise higher in the air, promising to beat down on them by noontime. The winds are picking up, tugging strands loose from Blake’s undo and whipping her in the face. An adventure, indeed.

“I came to say – your cabin is ready,” Yang adds. “If you’d like to get out of the wind, freshen up.”

“Thank you.” Weiss glances towards Blake. “Shall we?”

Blake shakes her head. “I’d like to stay here for awhile.”

“Alright.” Weiss wears a dove grey shawl, and she wraps it around herself more tightly. “Be careful. The further out we get, the more dangerous it will be to stand by the rail.”

“I’ll look out for Miss Belladonna,” Yang says assuringly.

Weiss looks from Yang to Blake and back again, smiles slightly, and then shrugs. “I’ll see you later then, Miss Belladonna.”

Blake nods to Weiss. “Miss Schnee.”

Weiss goes below deck, and it’s just the sailors, and Blake, and Yang. The manifest was light this early in the morning, and the few other passengers on the ship have retreated to their cabins for the crossing.

Blake stares out at the water in comfortable silence with Yang by her side. She feels exhilarated by so much; she feels oddly at peace. Perhaps the sea acts as a mother to us all, Blake muses, rocking everyone to comfort with its waves.

“My uncle used to take us out on sailboats when we were younger,” Yang says eventually, breaking the silence. “Ruby and I, that is. Miss Rose.”

“Across the channel?” Blake asks, surprised. Ruby had implied that she hadn’t travelled widely before.

“Up in the lake district,” says Yang. “He had a friend who owned land up there. We’d spend weeks up there in the summer while we could.”

Blake wonders what kind of friend Yang’s uncle, the drunken Mister Branwen, could have possibly made up in the lake district. But Yang’s face goes soft when she talks, and Blake knows that she’s reflecting on happy memories. Perhaps there are more layers to Mister Branwen than she or Winter had given him credit for.

“The lake district is beautiful,” Blake says. “Very tranquil. Not like the sea”

“Yes.” Yang looks over the edge of the rail. It’s a beautiful day, blue skies, puffy clouds, but the waves of the channel are still choppier, rougher, and wilder than any day on the lake. Yang watches the waves for a long moment, and then says, “I think I prefer the sea.”

There’s nothing to Yang’s words, just polite conversation, and then there’s so much more. Blake, too, prefers the sea. There are mysteries beneath it, if you’re brave enough to plunge beneath the waves. Blake thinks she might be brave enough. What would happen if she dived under? Would she be rewarded and find a glittering Atlantis on the ocean floor? Fortune favours the brave, after all.

“You look ready to tip over the side,” Yang comments.

Blake jerks back, realizes how far she had leaned over in her reverie. She stumbles, not used to the rocking boards of the ship underneath her feet, and Yang steadies her with a palm on the flat of her back. Blake feels the warmth of Yang’s hand radiate up every rivet of her spine.

Blake laughs. “My apologies. Lost in thought, I suppose. It’s quite lovely.” She turns and finds Yang watching her, that strange half-hesitant, half-amused look that she wears so well.

“Yes,” says Yang. “It is.”

\--

A seven hour ferry ride necessitates that Blake does not spend the breadth of it at the hull of the ship gazing at the waves. She goes below deck, she makes small talk with the Schnee sisters. She reads. She feels the pull of Miss Xiao Long’s eyes everywhere she goes. They circle each other like interested cats, but these are close quarters, and they don’t find much more time alone. Eventually, Yang disappears to play cards with Miss Rose and their uncle, while Blake contemplates a nap.

When they arrive in Calais it’s brilliant, golden afternoon, and for all the mysteries of the sea, Blake is grateful to disembark and stretch her legs. Ruby, who fared the least well being cooped up, abandons all decorum and bursts ahead of them in a rush of speed. Yang and Mister Branwen are left to tend to the luggage when Ruby shouts “Finally! Solid ground!”

They take a quick lunch, during which Blake jots off a note for Miss Adel to send ahead by post, and then all pile into another carriage for the drive into Paris. Then they’re on the road again, before Blake can even crack the dried salt and sea spray from her skirts.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t stay at another coaching inn. We won’t be in Paris until _midnight._ ” Weiss whines from the back of the coach. It’s just her, Winter, and Blake. Yang and Ruby have both opted to sit up front with Mister Branwen.

“And we’ll be able to start a fresh morning there when we arrive,” Winter replies. “Why waste time mucking about the French countryside?”

“Oh yes, that sounds _terrible,_ ” Weiss says sarcastically. She looks pointedly out the window. The scenery they’re passing by is a stunning patchwork of gilded fields and pale forests.

“You’ll thank me when we’re in Paris,” says Winter.

“It’ll be the middle of the night,” Weiss grumbles. “We won’t even _see_ Paris.”

Privately, Blake is grateful that they will not be spending another night at a coaching inn. The space was too liminal, the boundaries too blurred. If Yang helped Blake out of her clothes in a place like that again, Blake is sure that she would cross a line.

Despite the repast in Calais, the ferry ride has left all three of them tired and grouchy, and Blake is happy to ignore the Schnee sisters in favour of her book until it grows too dark.

Weiss is wrong on one count: When they roll into Paris, it’s illuminated by oil lanterns, although the streets are sparsely populated. They spy a large cluster of people outside the grand opera building, the women wearing plumes of feathers and gowns with pleated fronts, the men in gaudy rococo fabrics, and the odd knot of carousers disappearing into a tavern or _bouillon,_ but the hour is late, and the crowds reflect that. When they finally roll past the gates and into Miss Adel’s courtyard, Blake feels stiff with exhaustion, cramped from the long, long hours of sitting still.

Mademoiselle Adel is asleep, they are told in hushed tones upon entry. Mister Branwen, Ruby, and Yang are lead around the back to settle the carriage. Blake is led to her room, where she falls asleep instantly. She can’t even be bothered to take in the décor: The only thing she recalls is the soft give of her feather bed.

\--

Blake sleeps, she wakes, and she feels sunlight spill over her face like an insistent pet. Someone – Yang, Blake imagines – had crept in to open the curtains. From the light, Blake would guess that it was well into the morning. Winter had probably long since broken her fast, was tapping her foot impatiently at the door and waiting for Blake so that she could assign her a jam packed day of cultural excursions. Perhaps this should light a fire under Blake; instead, she stretches luxuriously and feels the stiff muscles it her shoulders stretch and pop. She considers going back to sleep. Only the knowledge that it would be _unfashionably_ rude to her hostess Miss Adel keeps Blake’s eyes from fluttering shut again. Instead, she sits up and gets her first real look at the room. It’s sumptuously appointed with flocked wallpaper in gold and brown satin, rich draperies in deep red velvet, an elegant vanity against one wall and set up with anything a lady might need for her toilette. Blake doesn’t see her luggage, but draped over the back of the spindly vanity chair is a dramatically embroidered robe. Blake slides out of bed, throws it on over her chemise, and pads into the hallway to explore.

Walking down the carpeted hallways has a surreal, déjà vu quality after stumbling through it blind the night before. Blake ponders the oddness of this feeling and follows the sound of activity until she pops out in a drawing room. A woman sits on a chaise, the skirts of her _robe a la française_ artfully fanned out around her and showing off the dramatic copper silk of the underskirt. Her hair is arranged in a fashionable _toque_ with an insouciant loose curl twining over her shoulder. In one hand she holds a cup of coffee, the porcelain so thin that it is nearly translucent. In the other, the morning’s edition of the _Journal de Paris,_ which she reads aloud to another woman, curled up on the chaise beside her. This, Blake realizes, could only be Miss Coco Adel.

Blake clears her throat to announce her entrance. “Good morning.”

Coco breaks off midsentence and looks up. Despite her impeccable fashions, her expression is open and warm. “Miss Belladonna!” she says, setting down her newspaper and her coffee cup and sweeping to her feet. “I hope you’re well rested.”

“Yes,” Blake says simply. “Am I the first to wake?”

Miss Adel grins. “It’s past ten bells. Miss Schnee and her sister left to see the promenade on _pont neuf_ a little awhile ago. They said to let you sleep in.”

“Oh.” Blake isn’t sure whether to be disappointed or grateful. “And Miss Xiao Long?”

“Who?”

Too late, Blake realizes how strange it is that she would be inquiring after the help first thing. She makes a face. “Never mind. Is there tea?”

Coco nods towards the silver pot on the table in front of her. “There’s coffee.”

Blake sighs. “Good enough.”

Coco laughs. She picks up a filigree bell and gives it a delicate ring. In the blink of an eye, a servant appears.

“Please bring Miss Belladonna a cup. Oh, and a _chausson,_ if Monsieur Daichi has any more made up.” The servant bobs her head and exits, and Coco turns back to Blake. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, although I feel like I already know you.”

“I feel the same,” Blake admits. How strange, to meet this woman who she’d heard news of all her life, who she’d never actually known outside of second-hand knowledge. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Please. The pleasure is all mine. Let us become the grand friends in the coming months that our mothers always dreamed for us to be.”

The servant returns with the cup and the _chausson,_ which turns out to be a fragrant, flaky apple turnover, and pours Blake a cup of coffee, which she raises in a toast. “Let it be so.”

The woman beside Miss Adel stirs, and Coco glances at her sidelong, as if she’d forgotten she was in the room. This ought to sound dismissive, but there’s such a terrible fondness to Coco’s expression that it’s as though this isn’t because the girl is an afterthought, but rather an extension of Coco herself.

“May I introduce my companion, Velvet Scarlatina?” Coco asks. She sits down again.

Miss Scarlatina doesn’t stand to introduce herself, but she does pat Coco’s hand. “Charmed,” she drawls. Blake is surprised at the accent that comes out – an American one, which perhaps explains her slips in decorum. She’s dressed like Miss Adel, in a brown robe de la française, but she favours softer fawnlike shades, and her hair falls in a loose, shining river down her back.

“An American in Paris,” Blake says in surprise. “Surely there’s a story there.”

When Velvet laughs, it carries all the brash unstrung nature of the colonies. “We’re more common than you think,” she tells Blake conspiratorially. “France and America are quite fond of each other.”

“Well, what’s not to love?” Coco asks. Again, when she looks at Velvet, it’s with adoration. Blake is starting to puzzle something out.

“Do you live here as well, Miss Scarlatina?” Blake asks.

“Somebody has to,” Velvet says blithely. “Coco would waste away in this drafty old manor by herself, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes, you’re doing me a _wonderful_ favour by taking up my hospitality,” Coco teases.

Velvet tips her face up towards Coco and smiles sweetly. “I know.”

Blake watches them, an indefinable emotion lodged in her chest. There’s sweetness here, alongside teasing, exasperation, fathomless understanding. Blake realizes that there’s a language here she doesn’t understand, that she’s desperate to parse, that’s as unfamiliar to her as a tongue from the Far East.

(What she is feeling is not so indefinable after all. What she is feeling is something close to yearning.)

“How did that come about?” Blake asks, trying not to sound too eager, wanting to trace the lifelines on two palms nonetheless.

“Miss Adel hosted me on my tour,” says Velvet. “And I decided to stay.”

Is it as simple as that, then? In London, it never could be. But Blake is not in London anymore. Blake is in Paris now, and the rules have changed. The dresses were more daring, the romances more illicit. The possibilities that unfold and spiral downward. Blake thinks about this, picks up her _chausson,_ and takes a bite.

It’s so completely, utterly delicious that it brings Blake back to earth. Buttery, crispy layers of pastry crunch delicately and melt in her mouth; she tastes a sugar crust on top, and the rich apple filling, laced with cinnamon and a spice she cannot name. Blake closes her eyes and hums in pleasure. “This is _incredible,_ ” she says, with feeling.

“We’re very lucky to have Monsieur Daichi,” Velvet says cheerfully. “He’s the best chef in Paris, and a very good friend.”

“Well, please tell your friend that he is a genius,” says Blake. And then she ceases speaking, because it would interrupt the sheer pleasure of eating.

“He needs to be reminded of that more,” Coco says. “A wonderful man cursed with not a trace of ego.”

“Coco thinks arrogance is a virtue,” Velvet teases. “I let her believe it because she is pretty when she crows.”

“It’s true, I am,” Coco says boldly. She leans closer towards Velvet, and their eyes meet and hold. Though she was invited in, Blake has the sudden sensation that she is intruding on a private moment.

She swallows the last perfect bites of her turnover and stands. “If it’s alright, I’m go to the promenade, and look for Miss and Miss Schnee,” she says tactfully.

Coco tears her gaze away from Velvet. “Don’t go alone if you’re not comfortable,” she says casually. “I’ll join you if you like. Or we can send someone to guide you.”

“I don’t mind. I like finding my own way around.”

An ordinary woman would be scandalized by Blake making such brash plans. But Coco Adel was no ordinary woman. She only shrugs, and waves one elegant hand at Blake. “If you change your mind, you know where I am. Oh, but _do_ be back for dinner. There’s a _bouillon_ in Marais that I want to take everyone to. You’ll adore it.” This is a statement, not a question, and when Coco says it, Blake believes her.

Blake dresses herself as quickly as she can by herself. Miss Xiao Long is nowhere to be seen, and Blake wonders if she is with Winter and Weiss. As she fumbles her own way into her stays, Blake can’t help but remember the nimble way that Yang had unlaced them two nights earlier.

In fact, Blake’s thoughts remain full of Yang as she steps out, finds the quick winding path that leads her to the Seine. From there, she can see pont neuf only a few minutes away, quickly recognizable by the throng of fashionable Parisians who paraded up and down its length, by the shady, tree-filled wedge of Place Dauphin to its side. The river itself is bustling; rough looking men with fishing poles, laundresses on their wide, flat bottomed barges. A gathering place in the artery of the city.

Standing at the river’s edge, taking it all in with careless charm, is Yang Xiao Long.

For one gobsmacked moment, Blake wonders if she has conjured Miss Xiao Ling into being through sheer force of will. She’s in the drab greys provided by the Schnee family once more, but she’s radiant nonetheless; glowing skin, golden hair. A strand has fallen loose and she fiddles with it idly. It’s all wrong, Blake thinks: Yang has the kind of hair that should always be tumbling down her back in wild and glorious curls.

Blake thinks that she’s in shadows, that she’s stumbled upon a secret moment where she can watch Yang gaze out at the water to her heart’s content – and she’s wrong. Yang’s head turns a moment later, pulled towards Blake like a lodestone. Yards between them, and still their eyes meet. Pedestrians cross their shared vision, and still Blake feels her heart flutter. What is it about Yang that sets her lungs on fire like this? Blake can’t place it, wants to chase it, feels her feet start to move and watches Yang draw nearer. They meet at the edge of the river, and Yang nods as though she has been waiting.

“Out for a walk?” Blake asks lightly.

Yang shrugs. “I couldn’t have you traipsing about Paris with a completely uniformed guide, now could I?”

“Winter has been to Paris,” Blake says, lighthearted and amused. “She’s been many times.”

“Ah but Miss Schnee isn’t here, is she?” asks Yang, raising an eyebrow. “But I am. How lucky for you that I’ve plotted the lay of the land.”

“I’m sure your ten minute start makes you an expert on the city.”

“Ten minutes?” Yang laughs sharply. “I’ve been out for hours. You like to sleep late, Miss Belladonna.”

Blake knows what Miss Schnee would do – scold her maid for being so bold. Blake doesn’t want to scold Miss Xiao Long. She wants to keep the volley of this conversation alive, wants to see the ways that Yang will surprise her. Blake tosses her head and puts on a haughty expression.

“It’s how I stay so beautiful,” she jokes. “Plenty of rest.”

“It’s working,” Yang replies. Immediately, her eyes widened, startled and caught. “Um, that is to say—”

Blake covers her mouth with her hand and giggles. “Thank you,” she says to Yang. She likes this side of Yang; flustered and sincere.

Yang puts away her wide eyed expression, puts away her blush, and straightens her shoulders. “Are you looking for Miss Schnee? I believe both sisters are on the promenade.”

Blake feels a tiny pang in her chest, like she’s just lost something she never even knew she really had. Yang is studiously looking at the ground now, stubbornly refusing to let the glimmer of fun slip through that could ruin their friendship, and Blake wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her, ask _don’t you realize that none of this matters? Don’t you realize that we’re in Paris now? Kiss me, you absolute fool._

She’s shocked at the depth of her feeling, shocked enough that she takes Yang’s lead and withdraws into herself once more. “Yes. That would be nice.”

Miss Xiao Long leads Blake to the promenade and leaves behind the tantalizing promise. 

\--

Blake and Weiss settle nicely into Paris under the watchful eye of Miss Winter Schnee. Their days quickly fall into something structured, which Blake had made her peace with once she’d gotten to know Weiss and Winter. Winter is a wholehearted believer in the intellectual stimulation that a lady’s continental tour provides, and she feeds both Weiss and Blake a steady diet of museum tours, private concerts, garden visits, and outings to ateliers. Blake has never considered herself particularly fashionable, but even she becomes a little breathless when she is shown her first bolt of good French silk.

(“They make it east in Lyon,” Yang whispers to Blake. She’s always by her side, simultaneously maddening and dutiful. “You’d like it there. It’s all good food and silk and cobblestones.”

Blake knows for a fact that Yang has never been to Lyon, has never been anywhere outside of England except Paris. She doesn’t even know how Yang _knows_ this – she likely learned It from Ruby, who learned it from a book.

But when Yang talks like this, she sounds like a seasoned and well-travelled expert. When Yang talks like this, Blake wants to believe everything that she has to say.) 

Blake’s favourite places to visit are the libraries, to the surprise of few, especially herself. Miss Adel turns out to have an excellent one tucked away in her home, but even that pales in comparison to the endless stacks of the Sorbonne. Good silk is a distant memory on Blake’s first outing there. French silk Blake cannot tear her eyes from; French books have so much more: her mind, her body, her soul.

(“They have _everything_ here,” Blake says to Yang, unstrung with delight.

Yang shrugs. “I’m not much of a reader,” she admits.

“ _Everyone_ is a reader,” Blake says with a scoff. “It’s about finding out what moves you.”

Miss Xiao Long still looks dubious, and Blake picks out a tome.

“Have you read Mary Wollstonecraft?” asks Blake. “You’d like her. You both have strong wills.”)

Yang never quite takes to reading, but she often acquiesces to being read to. Blake often wonders if she’s aroused genuine intellectual interest, or if Yang just likes to listen to the sound of Blake’s voice; likes the way their shoulders brush together when they curl up together with a book on the floor of the stacks. Blake won’t dissuade her of the notion. She likes this an awful lot as well.

The most startling surprise of the season is Weiss, who remains polite and interested, but who is so obviously straining at the bridle of her station that Blake half expects her to whinny. She soaks up their cultural excursions with a new, curious light on her face. She picks verbal sparring matches with Miss Rose and Blake sees glimpses of something vivacious. But it’s not until the day that Coco puts a sword in her hand that Weiss truly starts to look alive.

(“Have you ever tried fencing?” Miss Adel asks casually one day over tea.

“ _Swordplay_?” Weiss asks distastefully. “I don’t know how they do it in Paris, Miss Adel, but in London, well-bred ladies rarely learn to fight.”

“It’s common amongst the tourists,” Coco says. There’s a shrewd intelligence in her warm brown eyes that belies her lazy tone. “I thought you might take to it.”

Weiss sniffs, looks half insulted – and is then cut off by Winter.

“I studied the sword,” she admits. “On my tour.”

The double take Weiss gives her sister is comical. A tiny, sly smile plays over Winter’s lips; a history that remains locked behind a closed door.

“I’ll send word to my friend Monsieur Alistair tomorrow,” says Coco. “He’s an excellent tutor.”

Coco is true to her word. The tutor arrives the next day: A sharp, witty young man who was blinded in an accident as a child, who is excellent with a sword nonetheless.

Weiss takes to it like a duck to water. She spends long hours training after that, and Blake often finds her in the gardens, a delicate sword in her hand, her brow an endearing furrow of concentration.)

And so a routine starts to spread: Weiss practices swordsmanship, Blake chases novels, and they always gather for tea in Miss Adel’s sitting room in the afternoon. Throughout all of it, Yang circles Blake’s thoughts, an impossible dervish with no hope of settling. She is there when Blake wakes; she is winking at Blake when she removes a tray, leaning over far enough to give Blake a generous look down the front of her gown. She is trailing after Blake always, murmuring “Yes, Miss Belladonna,” in a knowing way that makes Blake shiver and then averting her gaze when Blake tries to look at Yang head on.

It doesn’t take long for Blake to come to terms with a simple truth: She and Miss Xiao Long are not destined to fall into the quick and seamless rapport that Coco and Miss Scarlatina found there way to. Yang is too many contradictions: Solid yet elusive, appallingly brash and then appallingly demure.

And all of this, _all_ of this, Blake thinks she can come to terms with. Let her flirtation run its course, let the weeks run to an end, let Paris fade into a memory over the winter, and with it the searing impact of Miss Xiao Long’s purple stare.

But then Yang picks up Weiss’s sword one afternoon, and Blake starts to boil over.

\--

It starts innocently enough: Blake goes to the training grounds to visit Weiss. It’s become a habit of hers: Though they were not close before Paris, she’s come to find a private joy in watching Miss Schnee blossom. Miss Xiao Long accompanies Blake of course, as she is wont to do.

It starts innocently enough: Weiss stops for a break, raises a flask of water to her lips and lets her sword clatter to the ground. Blake comes over to say hello, and they are distracted by morning niceties. Perhaps Yang is feeling bored, or perhaps she is feeling cheeky, because when Blake glances towards Yang she has picked up Weiss’s sword and is swinging it through the air in wide, lazy strokes.

Weiss sees what Yang is doing, and her eyes narrow. “ _Please_ be careful with that,” she snaps, painstakingly offended.

“I don’t get why you like this thing so much,” Yang admits. “Seems like a lot of extra pageantry for what a good punch to the face could accomplish just fine.”

“The _pageantry,_ ” Weiss spits, “Is the _point._ It’s not about the brawl, it’s about the art. And you’re holding it all wrong.”

“Oh yeah?” Yang bats her eyes at Weiss. “Why don’t you teach me?”

Weiss gapes and turns bright red. Apparently at her wits end with Yang, she turns to Blake. “Do you _always_ let her speak like that?”

Blake smirks. “Why not? I’m not her keeper.”

“But you are,” Weiss retorts. “That’s exactly what you are.”

“Miss Schnee, you’re going to hurt my feelings,” Yang cuts in. This is untrue: Yang sounds like she is enjoying herself immensely. “Do I have to duel you for my own honour?”

“With _your_ stance?” Weiss looks Yang up and down dismissively. “You’d lose anyway.”

“What’s wrong with my stance!?” Now Yang _does_ sound offended. She tries to shift her weight, plant her feet more firmly, but only ends up looking awkward, Weiss’s sword still in her fist.

Weiss rolls her eyes. “You look absurd.”

Yang does another pass with the sword, her grin wide enough to make her cheeks split, the freckles that dust the bridge of her nose looking like flecks of precious metal in the afternoon sun. “You’re just not used to seeing how commoners get it done,” she jokes. “This is all the rage in Covent Garden.”

“Where you fight with _sticks._ ”

“I told you, I’m more of a fisticuffs kind of girl.”

Weiss huffs, at the end of her rope. “If you’re going to continue to play with my sword – _which is not a toy, by the way –_ then at least let me show you how to stand.”

Yang stops swinging the weapon. Weiss marches up to Yang and kicks the arch of her foot, adjusting her stance – and Yang’s eyes are dancing. She is enjoying this immensely.

“And where should I put my arms?” asks Yang.

“Oh for the love of—” Weiss circles behind Yang and frames Yang’s arms with her own, not-so-gently adjusting her positioning. She’s so annoyed with Yang that she doesn’t notice what a blatantly flirtatious move this is – but Blake notices. And when Yang’s eyes flick towards her, when they catch hers in a stare, Blake knows that Yang has noticed Blake noticing. She leans back against Weiss a little, a new, cockier angle to her smirk.

“You can’t lock your elbows when you—” Weiss breaks off mid-instruction as she catches on, feels Yang’s shoulder blades brush up against her chest, sees Blake and Yang’s locked stare. Weiss makes a noise of disgust, springs backwards, and turns beet red. “I think you’ve got the hang of the form,” she squeaks, three octaves higher than normal.

“Are you sure?” Yang asks, deceptively innocent. “I think I could still use a few pointers.”

“Your form looks fine to me,” Blake interrupts coolly. “Perhaps you’re ready for your first real match.”

This is Blake throwing fuel on the fire, and from Yang’s pleased expression, she approves. She glances at Weiss sidelong. “Well? Do you think you can take me, Miss Schnee?”

Weiss’s eyes flick between Blake and Yang, assessing. “I think you can take care of yourself just fine, Miss Xiao Long.”

Weiss draws so close to putting words on the page, in a way that thrills Blake, in a way that stokes a blaze when Yang doesn’t argue, when she just looks at Blake and then ducks her head, again with that strange, unknowable smile.

“Perhaps I can,” Yang admits. “But we all need help sometimes. Don’t you agree, Miss Belladonna?”

The blaze crests to a boil. Something about seeing Yang with Weiss, teasing and open, has unlocked new depth of feeling in Blake. Blake doesn’t reply to Yang, only offers a shrug and a smile, but internally, she comes to a conclusion:

The next time they were alone in the stacks, she was going to kiss Miss Xiao Long’s mouth until it trembled. 

\--

But the universe is rarely linear, and the next afternoon, after Blake has already drawn up her courage, dusted her face with powder, dabbed orange blossom water on the inside of her wrists, she opens the door to find Miss Rose waiting on the other side.

“Miss Rose?” Blake asks. She deflates in surprise, admits to herself that she had been waiting for Yang.

“Good morning, Miss Belladonna!” Ruby chirps. “Have I taken you by surprise? I’m sorry.”

“No, I was only expecting Ya—Miss Xiao Long,” Blake corrects herself quickly.

Ruby smiles sweetly, undeterred. “You’re going to the Sorbonne today, yes? I begged Yang to switch places with me, just for this one day. I hope you don’t mind.”

Blake’s lips tingle with disappointment, but how can she say that to Ruby, whose face is as pure and as sweet as a songbird’s? Blake swallows her desire, draws up the blanket of fondness she bears for Ruby in its stead.

It’s not as though it’s a chore to spend time with Ruby. Her sweetness is infectious, and Blake sees a reflection of herself on Ruby’s face when they enter the Sorbonne library for the first time and are greeted by the rows upon rows of books. It must be even more spectacular to Ruby than it was Blake – after all, the Belladonnas keep a fine library in Edinburgh. Blake is not sure is Ruby has ever even owned a book.

Blake looks towards Ruby and sees her wriggling in her skin like a newborn puppy, which makes Blake smile.

“Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?” she asks.

“It’s _incredible,_ ” Ruby breathes. “They must have every book ever written in here.”

“All the French ones, anyway,” Blake agrees. “And a good many of the rest.”

“Can I explore?” the question bursts out of Ruby, her trademark of enthusiasm overpowering decorum coming through. “Begging your pardon Miss—”

Blake waves her hand. “Go.”

It’s all that Ruby needs: She’s off like a shot, her cloak trailing like a stream of red petals. Blake smiles as she watches her go, and then turns towards the stacks and her own more measured amble.

When Blake comes to the Sorbonne with Yang, she’s mesmerized by her surroundings, but she’s also strung taut by the presence of Miss Xiao Long. She rarely has the opportunity to really lose herself in a book, and she decides to take advantage of the opportunity. She drifts towards the recent prints of novels, runs her fingers across a few spines, finds a book, and settles down to read.

Blake is just starting to feel pulled under by _The Castle of Otrando_ when she hears a tiny cough.

“That one is really good,” says Ruby. There’s an optimistic lilt she can’t quite scrub from her tone.

Blake smiles briefly, her mind still on the pages. “I look forward to finding out for myself,” she replies. Her eyes start to track back towards the book.

“Oh of course!” Ruby looks almost guilty, almost for a moment, before barrelling ahead again. “But if you like that one, what you should _really_ read _The Recess._ It has everything. Royal intrigue, murder, secret twins. Real tol-lol dontcha think?”

“I’m still trying to decide what I think of this one,” Blake says, nodding towards the still open book in her lap.

Ruby catches herself, catches Blake’s mood. “I’m sorry,” she says, chewing on her lower lip. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“You don’t have to,” says Blake. She surprises even herself when she says it, but something about Ruby makes Blake want to reach out, to be kind. “I wouldn’t want to chase away a fellow lover of gothic novels.”

Ruby lights up. “So _have_ you read _The Recess?_ ”

“Only in pieces, while it was still being serialized. I never finished.”

“I won’t spoil the ending for you, then. It’s too good.” Ruby mimes locking her lips with a key and grins. Then, at the turn of a dime, Ruby sighs wistfully. “I can’t wait until we reach Italy. That’s where the manuscript for _Otrando_ was found, you know.”

Blake giggles. “I think that’s just a narrative device.”

“ _Still._ Italy is much more romantic than dreary old Paris, don’t you think?”

“You don’t care for Paris?”

Ruby shrugs. “I’ve never been one for fashion or parties. Never had the money for it, never had the patience. But Italy or Greece… those are the kinds of places where _adventures_ happen.”

“Are you looking for an adventure?” Blake asks. She’s enjoying this odd interlude despite herself.

“Oh. I don’t know. That’s more my sister’s court. But at times I feel like I am looking for… something.”

Blake knows how Ruby feels. That longing for something ineffable, for the prologue to end and the book to begin, without even understanding why. Her knowledge of this is bone deep.

She thinks about Yang, about Ruby placing adventure in her court. Blake can see that. Yang is like a force of nature, one no amount of pins or grey wool can restrain. Blake finds herself drifting into a fantasy about what it might be like to run down a shoreline with Yang, feet in the surf, unfettered, free. It’s a silly fantasy, but it still makes her heart pound in her chest.

“Me too,” Blake says at last. “I’m looking for something too.”

A quiet settles over them both. Ruby is twitchy, like she’s holding back words. It makes Blake nervous. The hairs on her arm prickle. She’s about to turn to turn to Ruby, ask her what it is she wants to say, when Ruby lets out in a rush:

“Yang isn’t as strong as she seems, you know.”

Blake is taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“Only that…” Ruby trails off, looks uncomfortable. “I know you two have gotten close.”

“She is my lady’s maid,” Blake says carefully.

“Closer than I’ve gotten with Miss Schnee,” Ruby volleys back, and alright, Blake can’t exactly argue with that.

“Yang is…” Blake isn’t sure what to say. To _anyone,_ but especially to her little sister. “She’s like nobody I’ve ever met before.”

“She cares about you too,” Ruby says softly. “She hasn’t said anything, but I can tell. Just don’t… don’t break her heart or anything like that, okay?”

Blake doesn’t answer. She’s unable to; there’s a lump in her throat that’s making it difficult to swallow, let alone speak.

\--

Blake grows more thoughtful after her conversation with Ruby. She starts to look at Yang in different lights: Less passion, more consideration. She still wants Yang, but she lets herself get to know her as well, lets that temper itself into something stronger, deeper.

She begins to notice the facets of Yang Xiao Long: The way she always checks in on her sister every morning, even if it’s just a squeeze on the shoulder as she passes by. The way she is the only one who can get Weiss to laugh, even when it is with exasperation.

Their lips never brush, but maybe their hearts start to, and Blake doesn’t know if she is thrilled or terrified.

\--

“A masque!” Coco claps her hands together, like she’s just suggested something brilliant.

It’s Coco and Velvet curled up on the chaise, Winter and Weiss and Blake on the long couch across from them, a tea service strewn across the hammered copper table, their days in Paris drawing to an end. Ruby and Yang are nowhere in sight, likely off playing cards with their uncle.

Only Velvet stirs at the proclamation. Coco immediately pouts. “It’s a good idea, don’t you think? For your last night in Paris.”

Blake had some half-formed plan of looking at the stars and trying to sneak into the library, maybe testing the waters and dragging Yang along with her. She’s never been one for big parties.

“As long as it’s nothing tawdry,” Winter says primly. In all the weeks they’ve spent together, her cool shell has not cracked once.

“Please, have a little faith in me,” Coco replies.

“It’s my faith in you that worries me,” says Winter.

Weiss, leaning forward in her chair, looks torn. Blake had seen her perk up a little at the idea of a masque, but she is carefully schooling herself to match Winter’s dismissive attitude now – and this makes the decision for Blake.

“I think that sounds lovely,” she says. “What’s the theme?”

A smile spreads over Coco’s face. “What’s the theme of any good masque? Come as you aren’t.”

The possibilities are endless, the rules in disarray.

\--

The afternoon of the masque, Yang carefully helps Blake dress. Blake had thought that after all these weeks, she’d grown immune to the effect of Yang helping her in and out of her clothes, but there’s magic in the air today, that sets everything it touches to sparking; that makes everything feel more exciting. The whisper of good silk has so much more to say than the sturdy swish of everyday fabrics. Feeling it lick her skin is almost too much for Blake. She shivers.

“You look beautiful,” Yang murmurs as she pins up the back of Blake’s gown.

Blake had thought carefully about costume – there were so many excellent choices at a well-read woman’s fingertips – but in the end, she had gone with Selene, the goddess of the moon who had fallen in love with a mortal man. As Yang fusses over her skirts, artfully pinning strings of shimmering crystals, Blake watches her through lowered lashes and wonders if Miss Xiao Long is canny enough to catch the significance.

(Not that Blake is saying she relates to a goddess. But well – the old gods could be terribly relatable sometimes couldn’t they? And Blake keenly knows what it feels like to fall for someone and be separated by station).

“I wish you were coming tonight,” Blake says out loud, surprising herself.

Yang is crouched on the ground in front of Blake. She looks up, grins, and takes a pin out of her mouth. “Wouldn’t that be a sight? I’ve never even owned anything silk.”

“I’m serious,” Blake replies. “If you came, I think—” Blake cuts off abruptly. What does she think? That they’d dance? That they’d fall in love? That they’d slide into a parallel realm where the rules didn’t apply anymore?

(Yes, and yes, and yes. All of the above.)

“I just think we’d have a very nice time,” Blake finishes lamely.

Yang doesn’t say anything. She just smiles, an odd, quiet smiles that belongs only to herself, and stands. “You’re all finished,” she says. “Did you want to take a look?”

This is ceremony; nothing more. Blake has been dressing in front of a looking glass this entire time and seen only a girl. But then Yang hands Blake her mask and Blake settles in over her face. She feels the stiff layers of watered silk rest smoothly against her cheekbones, and she looks in the mirror.

Suddenly, she has been transformed. The dress she’d decided on was old fashioned, nearly Grecian, to evoke the goddess she was dressed as. Columns of midnight coloured silk float to the ground, and the crystals Yang had affixed to them shimmer when Blake twists her body, remind her of a clear night sky. Diamonds glitter in her hair in a parallel. Her mask is a domino, the brow affixed with a small crescent moon. Behind it, Blake’s eyes burn golden. She looks mysterious, even regal. She likes what she sees.

Blake looks over her shoulder and sees Yang watching her carefully. “What do _you_ think?” she asks Yang.

Again, that odd little smile. Yang bobs a curtsy, which only reads as sardonic since they have never stood on ceremony. “Oh no,” she jokes, “Anything I said would only invite the wrath of the gods. They get very jealous, you see.”

Blake is grateful that she’s wearing a mask; it hides her telltale blush.

\--

“You’re fashionable, darling. You’re sensational.” Coco wears a gown of stiff black crepe shot through with gold. Anybody else would have looked like a dowager aunt in mourning – Coco looks like she’s about to set fifteen new trends. Her mask is chased gold that twines upwards into two horns.

“What’s your costume?” Blake asks.

“You can’t tell?” Coco swishes her skirts gaily. “I’m the Lady of the Underworld.”

“Ah, of course. And your queen?”

Coco nods. “Right over there.”

Blake follows Coco’s lead and sees Velvet in a mask that glimmers with rubies. The effect is of a handful of pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the bridge of her nose. She’s talking to Weiss, whose costume is both a shock and something inevitable: She is dressed as a Valkyrie, a paste sword strapped to her hip. Velvet is introducing Weiss to somebody; a tall woman with dark red hair who Blake has never met. Even from across the room, Blake sees Weiss’s alabaster skin stain pink under her silvered mask when they exchange the informal kiss of greeting.

Blake smiles. Well enough; it’s been a joy to watch Weiss unwind these past few weeks. Who knew that putting a sword in her dainty hand would bring her so palpably to life. Blake decides to leave Weiss to her flirtation and continues to survey the room.

She quickly finds the other Schnee, in another cozy situation with another strange woman. Winter is dressed as a snowdrop, in falls of foaming white lace that ought to look childish and twee but that Winter transforms into something austere, striking, and pristine. Blake never thought she would see Winter _flirt_ , but there’s something flickering between her and her companion, electric and loud even from across the room. The other woman wears darkness like a cloak, a gown of deep, deep burgundy… and a mask adorned with twin horns. 

“You’ve got competition,” Blake says, gesturing towards the other woman and Winter.

“Mademoiselle Cinder Fall.” Coco makes a face. “Trying to steal the hostess’s thunder. That is _so_ like her. You know she’s not even landed? She’s ward to Madame Salem.”

The names mean nothing to Blake, but from the venom in Coco’s voice, she’s sure it’s important gossip in Parisian circles. “Winter seems charmed,” she says.

“Winter needs better taste,” Coco says sourly.

Blake watches Mademoiselle Fall and Winter for another moment, amused, as Cinder takes Winter’s empty champagne flute, as Winter thanks her, looking sweeter and more solicitous than Blake has ever known her to be. Then she worries about getting caught staring and regretfully looks away.

Weiss is still talking to the tall woman, although Velvet has disappeared. Blake only needs to follow Coco’s gaze to find her: weaving through the room, resting palms on forearms to greet people softly. Blake understands how Coco and Velvet combined make formidable hostesses; Coco’s strength, Velvet’s sweetness. Coco’s unbridled adoration, Velvet’s sharp and quick-turning mind. The complement each other so well. Blake is starting to feel wistful again.

Blake’s eyes continue to roam. She sees myths, heroes, a daring Marquise de Pompadour, a knot of women dressed as Artemis’s handmaidens. She sees a girl in striking menswear, a velvet blue coat and breeches in an eye smarting shade of yellow and almost passes her by before realizing –

The girl in the trousers is _Ruby._ The dirt is scrubbed off her face, the knots combed out of her hair, but it is unmistakably Miss Ruby Rose, looking profoundly uncomfortable and dressed as Young Werther.

Blake makes her way over as quickly as her billowing skirts will allow for. “ _Ruby!_ ” she cries. “You look _smashing.”_

Ruby lights up when she spots Blake. “Miss Belladonna! Finally, somebody I know.”

“Did you sneak in?” Blake asks slyly. “Miss Rose, that’s quite bold of you.”

“No!” Ruby says quickly. “I would never – Miss Scarlatina insisted. She said every young woman should have a chance to see a masque, and since we’re leaving Paris so soon, I thought – I thought –”

“Ruby, relax,” says Blake. “I was only teasing. I think it’s brilliant that you’ve come. Your costume is wonderful. Where on earth did you find the time? Or the fabrics?”

“Miss Adel helped,” Ruby says cheerfully. “And Uncle Qrow.”

“Mister Branwen?” Blake can’t keep surprise from stringing her voice.

“Yes. He’s quite handy with a needle.”

Blake tries to picture it. The image of Qrow, bent over a pair of yellow breeches with a needle in one fist and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration makes Blake laugh, lifting one gloved hand to cover her mouth as she giggles.

“He used to be a soldier,” Ruby explains. “It’s a common skill on the battlefield, I hear. He also darns quite the sock.”

This makes Blake laugh even harder. Ruby grins. The fun is infectious. Soon they are both giggling, heedless of anybody around then who might take notice.

“Is your sister…” Blake trails off. She already has her answer: Striding through the door, like she was made to own the room, is Yang. She’s dressed from head to toe in shimmering gold, her hair rippling loose, a headdress that looks like the rays of the sun drawing the room’s attention, reflecting light. Blake’s breath catches in her throat.

“Did she know?” asks Blake.

She can _feel_ Ruby’s smirk beside her. “What do you think?”

Of course she did. They draw closer, the moon and the sun, brushing towards eclipse. When Yang is close enough to touch, Blake shakes her head in disbelief.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming,” she blurts.

“And miss the look on your face?” Yang asks. “Do you think I’m stupid.”

“Perhaps. I’m wearing a mask.”

Yang snorts. Then her expression softens, and gently, very gently, she reaches out to cup Blake’s cheek. “I can still see your eyes,” she says.

The moment stills them both. Yang, reaching out. Blake, leaning in. All of that hot desire that Blake thought had mellowed with time comes rushing back and Blake feels her knees turn to water.

(This feels like a dream, like it shouldn’t exist. But they are in Paris, and the rules have changed).

“Dance with me.”

Yang smiles. She’s dusted some sort of shimmering powder on her lips than make then even harder than usual to ignore. “We’ll cause a scandal,” she says slyly.

Blake leans forward and takes Yang’s hand. “I don’t care.”

Blake leads, or maybe Yang does, or maybe they both do, taking turns. The world blurs, and very little matters after that. She’s cocooned in the golden shroud of a fairy tale.

“Did Miss Adel dress you as well?” asks Blake.

“Mhm.” Yang smirks. “Are you jealous?”

“No.” Blake pauses and then thinks about Coco’s hands running up Yang’s sides, fitting folds of golden silk to her body and lacing up her stays. She thinks about every morning and every night that Yang has done this for her and the way it lights her skin on fire. “Maybe a little.”

Yang’s smile widens; her lips part. “Good.”

“You want me to be jealous?”

“Maybe a little.”

Blake thinks about that day on the grounds with Weiss: How smug Yang had looked in her arms, how quickly and how fiercely desire had uncoiled in her then. Yang has been teasing her for weeks, testing how she’ll react. It’s a luxurious thought; it drives Blake closer to her breaking point. The rest of the party melts away, inconsequential. It’s only Yang, Yang, Yang, and the fire in her eyes. Blake bites down on a strangled noise. She takes Yang’s wrist and her grip tightens.

“Miss Belladonna?”

Blake tugs Yang by the wrist, away from the crowd. She sees Weiss’s eyes follow her and then sees her look away. She drives a path across the room towards a niche framed by a pillar and drags Yang behind it and out of sight, away from the crowd.

“Miss Belladonna?” Yang asks again.

“Blake. Call me Blake.”

Yang’s expression softens. She’s wearing a mask, a simple golden domino, and she slides it off now, reveals the full spectacle of her perfect face. “Blake,” she says quietly. “What are we doing?”

A rhetorical question? They both know exactly what they are doing. An opening to leave? Neither one of them wants that. Before Yang can say anything else and ruin the moment, Blake surges forward and kisses her. The last thin membrane of propriety shreds. Blake kisses Yang, and it stops being something to say, and starts to be something true: Blake is kissing Yang, and the rules have finally changed.

Yang groans, a sound of longing and relief, and pulls Blake in to kiss her more deeply. Blake continues to push back until Yang is crushed against the pillar. The nose of Blake’s mask scrapes Yang’s cheek, and Yang pushes it higher on Blake’s forehead and kisses her again, kisses her newly bared cheeks, the corners of her mouth.

“I knew it would be worth it to see the look on your face,” Yang murmurs. Her voice is husky with desire, and it thrills Blake.

“Kiss me again, please,” is all Blake says.

“And if I say no?” Yang teases.

“You won’t.”

She won’t. She doesn’t. Yang keeps kissing Blake until they’re both dizzy from it, and for once Blake doesn’t feel her thoughts start to spin out. Blake keeps kissing Yang until she feels Yang’s hands start to slide up her thighs, and instead of doing what a proper lady ought to and recoiling, she leans in closer and wedges her knee between Yang’s legs, tongue darting out to taste Yang’s mouth.

“Blake,” Yang murmurs, “Maybe we—”

“If you tell me that we shouldn’t do this, I swear I’ll bite your tongue,” Blake interrupts. “Miss Xiao Long, I think I’ve wanted to kiss you from the very first moment I saw you drenched in rain.”

“Yang.”

“Hm?”

“It’s only fair. You should call me Yang.”

“ _Yang,_ ” Blake repeats. “Don’t you dare tell me we should stop.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Yang’s grin is nearly wolfish. “I was going to say that we should go somewhere else.”

Somewhere _else._ A bolt of desire spikes through Blake. The possibilities of somewhere _else_ ripples through her skin. In a way, it’s her party; she arrived late, and she’ll be the first to leave. To hell with what’s fashionable and to hell with what’s polite: The only thing Blake wants now is Yang in her arms.

“My room is free,” says Blake. “I believe you know the way.”

Blake barely remembers leaving, she’s tripping through so much fog. She only remembers Yang, the twitch of her hips, the twine of her hair. And then they’re falling into bed together and Yang is the only thing left to remember.

\--

When Blake wakes the next morning, she thinks that the night before must have been a dream. Too much poetry, too much synchronicity. Surely the memory of Yang’s skin, the pitched tenor of her voice, was too sweet to be anything other than manufactured. Surely that had to be a fantasy that Blake wove so tightly she’d started to believe it.

Then she looks to her left and sees Yang beside her, her golden hair splayed across the pillow, tiny diamonds from Blake’s dress twisted amidst the strands.

Yang blinks sleepily when she feels Blake watching her. “Good morning,” she mumbles. Smiling so sweetly that she looks childlike, holy. Yang stretches in bed without sitting up, and it’s impossibly sexy – Blake wants to burrow into the bed next to her and stay there for a week.

Unfortunately, they are leaving Paris today, and Blake is nowhere near ready to go. She stretches her arms high overheard. Beside her in bed, Yang’s eyes roam up and down her naked spine.

Blake turns her head and looks at Yang over her shoulder. Her tangled hair falls into her face.

“So what now?”

Yang yawns. “We’re travelling to Venice today, aren’t we?”

Blake rolls her eyes and resists the urge to whack Yang with a pillow. “You know what I mean. What _now._ Where do we go from here?”

“Oh.”

Yang finally sits up and looks thoughtful. For a long, long time she doesn’t speak. And then –

“Wherever we want.”

“Stop being so poetic,” says Blake. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not!” Yang protests. “I just meant… wherever you go, I go. Why does that have to be somewhere right now?”

Blake considers this. She likes the way it sits on her tongue, the way it rolls around in her mind. _Where you go, I go._ Perhaps poetry suited Yang after all.

Today they were leaving for Venice, and perhaps that was enough. Blake pictures the future: Shimmering canals with Yang by her side, crumbling ruins in Rome. She had been looking for an adventure. She had been looking for _something._ And this… this felt like the start of so many things at once. Blake looks at Yang, and she doesn’t feel that yawning, urgent desire anymore (or at least it no longer plagues her). Instead, she feels at peace.

“Of course, if you’re talking about _now_ now—” Yang rolls out of bed and twines a sheet around her body. She bobs her head, politely, a comb brush doing her best impression of a maid. “May I help you dress, Miss Belladonna?”

This time, Blake _does_ throw the pillow.

Things change, and things stay remarkably the same. Weiss is still persnickety, Ruby is still irrepressible. Winter and Mister Branwen still snap at each other with thinly veiled dislike. When their luggage is packed and their coach is ready, Velvet presses a package of _chausson_ wrapped in waxed paper into Blake’s hands.

“For the road,” she says with a smile.

Coco throws her arms around Blake and kisses her grandly on both cheeks. “Come back any time,” she says. “We’re nearly cousins, after all.”

Things stay the same, and things change. Weiss carries a sword in her lap, slight and elegantly carved, a parting gift from Monsieur Alistair. Winter writes out a careful letter, and Blake wonders if it is to the second Persephone, the one in red. Ruby rides up front with her uncle, but Yang stays glued to Blake’s side, their thighs pressed together, fingers surreptitiously entwined.

The morning that Blake left London was dreary, and she’d told herself it suited her spirits. The day that they leave Paris is much the same: Spitting rain, misty fog. Even the golden bricks of the city look dull and worn down by the day. This time, it doesn’t touch Blake. This time she only feels buoyant, hopeful warmth. The road is unspooling in front of her, as golden as a strand of hair. She is standing at a precipice, she is holding her breath, and this time – this time – she was not afraid to leap.

There's a whole world waiting for her after all.


End file.
